This is my second AAR for the month of June. It is a good training month so far. In talking to a friend about this class he relayed that another friend wanted to know about the class. Friend number 1 told friend number 2 that I would probably be posting an AAR on INGO. Friend number 2 said he wanted the real scoop. I didn't think I was in the habit of sugarcoating things, but just in case I will be sure to start this review with a few negatives.
What; Advanced handgun with Mike Pannone.
Where; Post 46 in Pinckney, MI
Gear; Glock 19 w/RMR in Dale Fricke Serephim LH Appendix holster, Glock 17 w/ DR Middlebrooks Pro-Sights in a right hand Henry Holster appendix carry. Aprox. 800 rounds of PMC Bronze 115 grain FMJ. 0 Stoppages or malfunctions.
Classmates; Mostly locals many of whom told me they had been through MDFI's full range of courses. The only person I knew in this class was the infamous Steve Fisher. He was part student and part facilitator. A representative from Raven Concealment was also in the class. He brought giveaways and prizes. He also shot very, very well.
The cons; Well lets start with the obvious. Class cost $525, plus range fee $30, plus ammo @ $200, plus hotel at $120, and then gas $30 for a grand total of $905 for a two day class. It is what it is. Big name training is usually expensive. There really weren't many negatives. The only others I could think of would the amount of down time (long breaks), and the ever present habit of people who are shall we say, not qualified to come to an "advanced" class, come anyway.
Mike Panonne had to my way of thinking an ideal personality for a teacher. He was firm when he needed to be and maintained control of the class but was never overbearing. He didn't feel the need to show off or berate any of the students. He only told war stories where they could substantiate a point he was trying to make and used them sparingly. After the obligatory safety briefing Mike set the stage for the weekend by giving a brief outline of the class and telling us why it was called an advanced class. He stated that we wouldn't necessarily being doing a bunch of advanced techniques but he would be teaching at a high level and detail that you wouldn't expect in a basic class. I found that he could have easily called this an instructor class. He did mention right off the bat that he would be teaching the class at a high level and was not going to dumb it down for people who couldn't keep up. They were welcome to be there, but would just have to do the best they could to keep up. (He did not compromise safety though.) I was thrilled to hear that.
Everything we did was done with an eye on efficiency and studied in detail. Mike would often encourage us to look for the most common failure point in certain techniques and let that help guide you to what a better method might be. We warmed up with some 10 yard marksmanship shooting and then went into some draw and shot drills. Every so often throughout the weekend we would stop what we were doing and go back to the 25 yard line to shoot some bulls. Mike has a whole theory on why he does this. It seemed to work. It was fine with me as that and single hand shooting are two of the things I am currently working on. We worked on movement forward, lateral, and rearward. We did this on paper and steel. We also did a walk back drill getting back to 50 yards shooting off a stool on one foot. It was at this point that Kyle from Raven won that drill.
TD2 started with another 10 yard warmup. We then went into a bunch of SHO and WHO work. We also did a bit of reloading work. Later we moved to barricade shooting. This is something I have not done a lot of so I was happy to do it here. After going into a detailed tutorial on the methods we eache lined up behind a barricade and got to work. In between the barricades Mike was teaching his vehicle prone position. After everyone got some reps in Mike set up a drill where we moved left to right going through 3 nine hole barricades with a station for the vehicle prone position in between. The goal was to hit steel from every position and get three hits from each of the prone stations and get it done as fast as you could. I was happy to make it through with no misses.
After this we spent quite a bit of time on weak hand access of the gun. He had a little twist on the method I have learned and teach. I must say that I will probably be teaching the method he showed us from now on out. We also did some work on one handed reloading. At some point we got to run his 15 in 10 drill. This drill is shot from the 20, 10, and 5 yard lines. You shoot 5 shots from each position for time. Your goal is to get no more than three c zone hits on an IPSC target and do it in 10 seconds or less. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MeFZM6LwHE We also did some speed bulls and finished up with some more moving and shooting drills. As the only lefty in the class I was always behind the power curve starting out, until we switched movement direction.
All in all I found this to be a very informative class and will be looking to train with Mr. Panonne again. Of the 40 or so classes I have taken in the recent past this class ranks toward the top, maybe even top 5.
What; Advanced handgun with Mike Pannone.
Where; Post 46 in Pinckney, MI
Gear; Glock 19 w/RMR in Dale Fricke Serephim LH Appendix holster, Glock 17 w/ DR Middlebrooks Pro-Sights in a right hand Henry Holster appendix carry. Aprox. 800 rounds of PMC Bronze 115 grain FMJ. 0 Stoppages or malfunctions.
Classmates; Mostly locals many of whom told me they had been through MDFI's full range of courses. The only person I knew in this class was the infamous Steve Fisher. He was part student and part facilitator. A representative from Raven Concealment was also in the class. He brought giveaways and prizes. He also shot very, very well.
The cons; Well lets start with the obvious. Class cost $525, plus range fee $30, plus ammo @ $200, plus hotel at $120, and then gas $30 for a grand total of $905 for a two day class. It is what it is. Big name training is usually expensive. There really weren't many negatives. The only others I could think of would the amount of down time (long breaks), and the ever present habit of people who are shall we say, not qualified to come to an "advanced" class, come anyway.
Mike Panonne had to my way of thinking an ideal personality for a teacher. He was firm when he needed to be and maintained control of the class but was never overbearing. He didn't feel the need to show off or berate any of the students. He only told war stories where they could substantiate a point he was trying to make and used them sparingly. After the obligatory safety briefing Mike set the stage for the weekend by giving a brief outline of the class and telling us why it was called an advanced class. He stated that we wouldn't necessarily being doing a bunch of advanced techniques but he would be teaching at a high level and detail that you wouldn't expect in a basic class. I found that he could have easily called this an instructor class. He did mention right off the bat that he would be teaching the class at a high level and was not going to dumb it down for people who couldn't keep up. They were welcome to be there, but would just have to do the best they could to keep up. (He did not compromise safety though.) I was thrilled to hear that.
Everything we did was done with an eye on efficiency and studied in detail. Mike would often encourage us to look for the most common failure point in certain techniques and let that help guide you to what a better method might be. We warmed up with some 10 yard marksmanship shooting and then went into some draw and shot drills. Every so often throughout the weekend we would stop what we were doing and go back to the 25 yard line to shoot some bulls. Mike has a whole theory on why he does this. It seemed to work. It was fine with me as that and single hand shooting are two of the things I am currently working on. We worked on movement forward, lateral, and rearward. We did this on paper and steel. We also did a walk back drill getting back to 50 yards shooting off a stool on one foot. It was at this point that Kyle from Raven won that drill.
TD2 started with another 10 yard warmup. We then went into a bunch of SHO and WHO work. We also did a bit of reloading work. Later we moved to barricade shooting. This is something I have not done a lot of so I was happy to do it here. After going into a detailed tutorial on the methods we eache lined up behind a barricade and got to work. In between the barricades Mike was teaching his vehicle prone position. After everyone got some reps in Mike set up a drill where we moved left to right going through 3 nine hole barricades with a station for the vehicle prone position in between. The goal was to hit steel from every position and get three hits from each of the prone stations and get it done as fast as you could. I was happy to make it through with no misses.
After this we spent quite a bit of time on weak hand access of the gun. He had a little twist on the method I have learned and teach. I must say that I will probably be teaching the method he showed us from now on out. We also did some work on one handed reloading. At some point we got to run his 15 in 10 drill. This drill is shot from the 20, 10, and 5 yard lines. You shoot 5 shots from each position for time. Your goal is to get no more than three c zone hits on an IPSC target and do it in 10 seconds or less. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MeFZM6LwHE We also did some speed bulls and finished up with some more moving and shooting drills. As the only lefty in the class I was always behind the power curve starting out, until we switched movement direction.
All in all I found this to be a very informative class and will be looking to train with Mr. Panonne again. Of the 40 or so classes I have taken in the recent past this class ranks toward the top, maybe even top 5.
